Monday, January 18, 2010

Brown Up... Coakley Down = Smiley Face

Two new polls came out late last night that show Scott Brown rolling into Tuesday’s special election with momentum and possibly an insurmountable lead — depending on which poll one prefers. The new PPP poll shows Brown with a five-point lead and a majority of the vote, 51-46, which this late may mean that majority will have cemented in the three-person race. A larger majority (58%) believe that Brown made a case for his campaign, while only 41% believe the same about Coakley:

Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 51-46 in our final Massachusetts Senate poll, an advantage that is within the margin of error for the poll.

Over the last week Brown has continued his dominance with independents and increased his ability to win over Obama voters as Coakley’s favorability numbers have declined into negative territory. At the same time Democratic leaning voters have started to take more interest in the election, a trend that if it continues in the final 36 hours of the campaign could put her over the finish line.

The PPP news isn’t all good:

-Brown is up 64-32 with independents and is winning 20% of the vote from people who supported Barack Obama in 2008 while Coakley is getting just 4% of the McCain vote.

-Brown’s voters continue to be much more enthusiastic than Coakley’s. 80% of his say they’re ‘very excited’ about voting Tuesday while only 60% of hers express that sentiment. But the likely electorate now reports having voted for Barack Obama by 19 points, up from 16 a week ago, and a much smaller drop from his 26 point victory in the state than was seen in Virginia.

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The PJM poll on its face suggests that the race tightened, with Brown dropping from 15 up to the 9.6 point lead from last night. I’d guess that the difference comes from a better polling sample. Even if the race really “tightened” to a 9.6-point lead, I think Brown will take it.